The Belfry:

A Nightmare Comic

Sometimes it’s interesting to read a comic that isn’t part of world-building or creating a complex, multi-layered world. To be sure: such complex comics are very welcome, and Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Bechko’s Invisible Republic is one of the best examples of the genre. (It’s so complex, in fact, that we’ve let a couple of issues pass unreviewed here, just to let the story play out a bit before attempting an analysis.) But Hardman’s latest book, The Belfry, is about as far from that style as it’s possible to get. It’s a half-remembered nightmare, an exercise in violent Gothic horror with sketched characters (archetypes, really) and supernatural giant bat-people. But as an experiment, it’s an interesting one, and the more thought one puts into it, the more terrifying and haunting it seems.

The plot itself is very slight, although more complex that it seems at first. The nominal protagonist is “Bill”, the co-pilot of a wonderfully old-fashioned 1930s-era passenger plane that has recently crashed on a tropical island. Bill wakes up at first to discover he is the only survivor, as he attempts to rouse Flight Attendant “Janet” (there are only three named characters). But just as his investigation is beginning, a half-bat, half-human monster pounces on him and bites his neck, vampire-style. Bill cuts, in his memory, to an image of the plane in flight, but himself and everyone else on board asleep. This flashes him to yet a third possible reality, one in which everyone on board has survived, save for the Captain, who now sports a branch through his left eye. This plot line is allowed to play out completely, and involves transformation, body horror and a strange twist at the end that suggests a circular story.

This comic has the logic of a dream, which is one of its most effective elements. Scenes wander into each other, end abruptly, have an odd specificity that seems to make sense until they’re considered closely. It’s best, with stories like this, to allow the book to play their magic trick and not try to over-think.

As dreams go, The Belfry is fairly terrifying. One common phobia for humans is a complete loss of control, even over one’s own body. The ancient device of a monster that bites and causes an inevitable grotesque infection (the disease metaphor is fairly obvious) finds its way into dozens of horror sub-genres, including zombies and vampires. But here, they’re added to body anxiety (the characters are drawn naked in the latter pages, tapping another rich vein from the language of dreams) and feelings of powerlessness. Bill and Janet spend the entire story essentially asking what’s going on. No action either of them take (with perhaps one exception) alters the course of the story in any way. They’re victims, caught in some sort of trap, and never progress beyond the stage of figuring out what’s happening to them before it happens.

Whether a reader will enjoy The Belfry depends almost entirely on taste. The comic is very clever, well-drawn and effective, with excellent use of the medium, but the subject matter and overall style will only appeal to a specific type of reader. Happily, I’m one of those types, so I enjoyed it and recommend it to my fellow twisted minds.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Independent scholar Ian Dawe has been writing for Sequart since November 2013. Before that, he had a mixed background, initially in science (Molecular Biology and Biochemistry), where he earned an MSc from Simon Fraser University and then an MA in Film from the University of Exeter in the UK. He spent a decade teaching at the college level, delivering courses in Genetics, Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Biological Anthropology and Film History. His academic work includes peer-reviewed papers on the work of Alan Moore, Harvey Pekar for Studies in Comics and a dissertation on Terry Gilliam for the University of Exeter. He has presented papers at several major academic conferences including Slayage 2014, Magus: Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Work of Alan Moore in 2010 (in the wizard's hometown of Northampton), Comics Rock and the International Conference of the Humanities in 2012, and at the Southwest Popular Culture Association Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2014 and 2015. He has contributed to several books, including a chapter about the TV show Archer in "James Bond and Popular Culture" and two chapters on Breaking Bad for "Breaking Bad and Masculinity", both now available from McFarland. At Sequart, he has authored a chapter for New Life and New Civiliations: Exploring Star Trek Comics, A Long Time Ago and two more upcoming books on Star Wars comics. He has also contributed to books on Alan Moore and 1970s Horror Comics. He is currently planning a full-length book on Better Call Saul. Ian currently lives in Vancouver, BC.

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Also by Ian Dawe:

The Cyberpunk Nexus: Exploring the Blade Runner Universe

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A More Civilized Age: Exploring the Star Wars Expanded Universe

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A Galaxy Far, Far Away: Exploring Star Wars Comics

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A Long Time Ago: Exploring the Star Wars Cinematic Universe

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New Life and New Civilizations: Exploring Star Trek Comics

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